Did Chris Christie shaft Hoboken? A breakdown of where the Sandy dollars went

Jan. 21, 2014

Written by

Michael Symons

@MichaelSymons_

Separate from the explosive and strenuously denied allegations that Christie’s team demanded a development project’s approval in exchange for Sandy funding is the conflict between the state and Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer over whether the city has been shortchanged.

Zimmer says it has and that it’s the retribution she says Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno warned about.

“It has come to fruition in the first round and I’m not going to stand silent for the second round and have Hoboken not get funding,” Zimmer said Sunday on CNN. “I mean, we deserve our fair share. We deserve some of this funding. We’ve seen it happen in the first round, and I’m not going to stand aside.”

Not true, says Marc Ferzan, head of the Governor’s Office on Recovery and Rebuilding. More than $14 billion was requested for mitigation projects and very little of it has received funding so far, he said.

“We’ve tried to have an objective process. We’ve tried to design programs with application criteria that are objective, that prioritize the communities most in need with the least financial resources, to be accountable. I think we’ve accomplished that,” Ferzan said. “When you look at our recovery programs in totality, I’m scratching my head a little bit about any community that’s getting the short end of the stick, other than to say that I understand we’ve got very limited resources at our disposal to date.”

When the Christie administration says Hoboken has received nearly $70 million in funding, it’s documenting what the city, its residents and businesses have received so far from the roughly $60 billion that Congress approved for Sandy recovery, which in turn funds dozens of programs.

Very little of that money has actually gone to Hoboken’s city government.

The money includes $43 million for National Flood Insurance Program claims, $8.5 million in Small Business Administration loans, $6.3 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency aid to individuals for things like rental assistance and $4.3 million in FEMA reimbursements to the city for storm-response costs.

(Page 2 of 3)

The Federal Transit Administration allocated $2.141 million for repairs at the Hoboken Terminal & Rail Yards. The U.S. Department of Education provided $48,142 through a program that helps maintain safe learning environments in disrupted areas.

From the programs New Jersey established using its $1.8 billion Department of Housing and Urban Development disaster-recovery block grant, 38 homeowners in Hoboken have preliminary approval for home-elevation grants averaging $100,000 and 156 residents are approved for $10,000 resettlement grants. A small business, Cheese and Wine Hoboken, received a $46,000 grant.

The city received $200,000 in post-Sandy planning assistance grants.

Zimmer specifically is addressing her city’s pursuit of funding through the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. That program is administered by FEMA and provides grants to states and local governments after a major disaster for long-term measures that reduce the loss of life and property following future disasters.

New Jersey received nearly $300 million through that program after Sandy. Towns and counties submitted more than $14 billion in requests for thousands of projects through the New Jersey State Police’s Office of Emergency Management. Hoboken — which was underwater for days after Sandy — sought more than $100 million, including money to build seawalls and pumps and buy vacant land.

Huge demand

The state, with nearly 47 times more demand than money available, used its $300 million for six programs. The two biggest programs cost $100 million each. One provides grants of up to $30,000 to homeowners to help them elevate their homes. The other pays for the first installment of what will be a $300 million effort to buy out homes in oft-flooded areas such as Sayreville and South River.

The state used $50 million to give grants to all 21 counties for local and regional projects. That money was allocated in October. Hudson County, where Hoboken is located, got $1.7 million. The top awards went to Ocean County, at $10.25 million, and Monmouth County, at $7.8 million.

(Page 3 of 3)

Next biggest is a $25 million “energy allocation initiative,” which provides money to 146 governmental units for pursuing alternative energy options as a backup for when the power grid fails. The state says it had 400 requests statewide seeking around $125 million. Hoboken’s share is $142,080 — which it used, rather famously after recent days of media coverage, to buy a backup generator.

Ferzan said the money didn’t have to be used for a generator, which he said can break down quickly.

“You can use the allocation for engineering studies, and what we hope to do with future funding is set up a revolving fund for alternative energy solutions to pursue things like combined heat and power or fuel-cell technology or solar panels with inverter switches which are all off the grid and essentially are much, much more resilient and much more permanent,” Ferzan said.